ABSTRACT
Age-related macular degeneration(ARMD)is the primary cause of severe visual impairment and blindness in people over 60 years old. With the aging of the global population, the incidence of the disease is also rising year by year. However, the pathogenesis and treatment strategy of ARMD need to be further explored. As a cutting-edge science and technology, microfluidic chips can build a comprehensive microsystem that simulates the condition and function of human tissues and organs, which has the advantages of less sample consumption and short analysis time. In recent years, many studies have confirmed that microfluidic chips can bring brand new technology solutions to the basic and clinical research of ARMD. This article will discuss and review the application progress of microfluidic chips in the areas of ARMD mechanism research, drug evaluation and clinical translation, providing a theoretical reference for further research on the diagnosis and treatment of ARMD.
ABSTRACT
Flavonoids such as baohuoside I and icaritin are the major active compounds in Epimedii Folium(EF)and possess excellent therapeutic effects on various diseases.Encouragingly,in 2022,icaritin soft capsules were approved to reach the market for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)by National Medical Products Administration(NMPA)of China.Moreover,recent studies demonstrate that icaritin can serve as immune-modulating agent to exert anti-tumor effects.Nonetheless,both production effi-ciency and clinical applications of epimedium flavonoids have been restrained because of their low content,poor bioavailability,and unfavorable in vivo delivery efficiency.Recently,various strategies,including enzyme engineering and nanotechnology,have been developed to increase productivity and activity,improve delivery efficiency,and enhance therapeutic effects of epimedium flavonoids.In this review,the structure-activity relationship of epimedium flavonoids is described.Then,enzymatic en-gineering strategies for increasing the productivity of highly active baohuoside I and icaritin are dis-cussed.The nanomedicines for overcoming in vivo delivery barriers and improving therapeutic effects of various diseases are summarized.Finally,the challenges and an outlook on clinical translation of epi-medium flavonoids are proposed.
ABSTRACT
Owing to the inherent shortcomings of traditional therapeutic drugs in terms of inadequate therapeutic efficacy and toxicity in clinical treatment, nanomedicine designs have received widespread attention with significantly improved efficacy and reduced non-target side effects. Nanomedicines hold tremendous theranostic potential for treating, monitoring, diagnosing, and controlling various diseases and are attracting an unfathomable amount of input of research resources. Against the backdrop of an exponentially growing number of publications, it is imperative to help the audience get a panorama image of the research activities in the field of nanomedicines. Herein, this review elaborates on the development trends of nanomedicines, emerging nanocarriers, in vivo fate and safety of nanomedicines, and their extensive applications. Moreover, the potential challenges and the obstacles hindering the clinical translation of nanomedicines are also discussed. The elaboration on various aspects of the research trends of nanomedicines may help enlighten the readers and set the route for future endeavors.
ABSTRACT
Spinal cord injury (SCI) disrupts the structural and functional connectivity between the higher center and the spinal cord, resulting in severe motor, sensory, and autonomic dysfunction with a variety of complications. The pathophysiology of SCI is complicated and multifaceted, and thus individual treatments acting on a specific aspect or process are inadequate to elicit neuronal regeneration and functional recovery after SCI. Combinatory strategies targeting multiple aspects of SCI pathology have achieved greater beneficial effects than individual therapy alone. Although many problems and challenges remain, the encouraging outcomes that have been achieved in preclinical models offer a promising foothold for the development of novel clinical strategies to treat SCI. In this review, we characterize the mechanisms underlying axon regeneration of adult neurons and summarize recent advances in facilitating functional recovery following SCI at both the acute and chronic stages. In addition, we analyze the current status, remaining problems, and realistic challenges towards clinical translation. Finally, we consider the future of SCI treatment and provide insights into how to narrow the translational gap that currently exists between preclinical studies and clinical practice. Going forward, clinical trials should emphasize multidisciplinary conversation and cooperation to identify optimal combinatorial approaches to maximize therapeutic benefit in humans with SCI.
Subject(s)
Humans , Axons/pathology , Nerve Regeneration/physiology , Spinal Cord Injuries/therapy , Neurons/pathology , Recovery of FunctionABSTRACT
Inflammatory diseases are key contributors to high mortality globally and adversely affect the quality of life. Current treatments include corticosteroids or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories that may cause systemic toxicity and biologics that may increase the risk of infection. Composite nanoparticles that bear not only the drug payload but also targeting ligands for delivery to inflammation sites at lowered systemic toxicity are established in the nanomedicine field, but their relatively large size often leads to systemic clearance. Metal-based nanoparticles with intrinsic anti-inflammatory properties represent attractive alternatives. They are not only designed to be compact for crossing biological barriers (with the nanoparticle serving as a dual carrier and drug), but also support label-free tracking of their interactions with cells. The review commences with an outline of the common inflammatory diseases, inflammatory pathways involved, and conventional drug-loaded nanoparticles for anti-inflammation. Next, the review features the emerging applications of self-therapeutic metal-based nanoparticles (e.g., gold, coper oxide, platinum, ceria, and zinc oxide) for managing inflammatory diseases in animals over the past three years, focusing on therapeutic outcomes and anti-inflammatory mechanisms. The review concludes with an outlook on the biodistribution, long-term toxicity, and clinical translation of self-therapeutic metal-based nanoparticles.
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The etiology and pathogenesis of anxiety disorders were still unknown with limited progress in treatment， and had a low cure rate and a high relapse rate. Oxytocin has attracted attention in recent years due to its anxiolytic effect， especially validated in animal experiments， but there are few studies in humans. Therefore， the purpose of this paper is to illustrate the pathological mechanism of anxiety through review researches on oxytocin and anxiety in recent years. Anxiety disorder is one of the most common mental disorder， and the imbalance of neurotransmitters is one of the pathogenesis. As a common neurotransmitter in the brain， oxytocin participated in the process of anxiety regulation. The purpose of this article is to summarize the research related to oxytocin to explore its possible mechanism of regulating anxiety， and to provide new ideas for diagnosis and treatment of anxiety disorders in combination with the clinical findings. ［Funded by Zhejiang Health Science and Technology Plan （number， 2022KY367）］.
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Nanotechnology has shown broad application prospects in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Currently, nearly 80 cancer nanomedicines are under clinical investigation, and many have been approved with enhanced anti-tumor efficacy and decreased side effects. However, the presence of various barriers in related basic research, process control and clinical trials lead to extremely low translation rate. From the perspective of clinical commercialization, we summarized the progress, clinical status, challenges and opportunities of cancer nanomedicine, and presented a cutting-edge prospect on the rational design of nanomedicine and clinical trial strategies.
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The stem cell biology plays an important role in the application and research of the clinical medicine and biology. The breakthrough of the therapies for a variety of human diseases depends on the rapid growth of stem cell biology. It is of great significance to set up graduate curriculum of stem cell biology in the medical college. This article elaborates the design and implementation of the course of Stem Cell Biology including the selection of the teaching materials, design of course outline, teaching content, evaluation methods, teaching introspection and other aspects, thus providing references and communications in this field.
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Mitochondrial DNA (mt-DNA) is an important carrier of extranuclear genetic information. Recent research results show that mt-DNA is closely related to the occurrence and metastasis of various malignant tumors, and can be used for early diagnosis and targeted therapy of cancer. Therefore, further research on the mechanism of mt-DNA in digestive system malignant tumors has important clinical significance for screening and identifying tumor molecular markers for anti-tumor drug targets, cancer diagnosis and prognosis analysis. This article reviews the research progress on the potential relationship, clinical application and therapeutic targets of mt-DNA and digestive system malignancies.
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Liposomes have been widely exploited in clinics. After entry into blood stream, liposomes absorb a large number of plasma proteins to form protein corona, which severely regulates in vivo performance of liposomes. It is of high importance to study the relationships among liposome surface properties, plasma protein components and liposome in vivo performance for clinical translation. In this review, we will summarize the factors affecting liposome protein corona, the effects of protein corona on liposome performance and the rational design of liposomes, aiming to accelerate clinical translation of liposome-based therapeutics.
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Cartilage is a tissue simple in composition, complex in structure and difficult to repair after injury. The development of cartilage tissue engineering has been prompted by the limitations of current treatment methods, but is now faced with difficulties in further clinical transformation. With an introduction to the present situation in the treatment of cartilage injury, we analyzed the challenges opportunities in the clinical transformation of cartilage tissue engineering, hoping to provide some ideas and methods to promote its development andclinical transformation.
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Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is a newly emerging imaging modality for preclinical and clinical applications. The conventional PAI systems use Q-switched Nd:YAG/OPO (Optical Parametric Oscillator) nanosecond lasers as excitation sources. Such lasers are expensive, bulky, and imaging speed is limited because of low pulse repetition rate. In recent years, the semiconductor laser technology has advanced to generate high-repetitions rate near-infrared pulsed lasers diodes (PLDs) which are reliable, less-expensive, hand-held, and light-weight, about 200 g. In this article, we review the development and demonstration of PLD based PAI systems for preclinical and clinical applications reported in recent years.
Subject(s)
Lasers, SemiconductorABSTRACT
Translating of scientific advances into clinical practice is a major challenge in the stroke research field in the past decades. There were many reasons involved:animal models might not accurately capture all aspects of clinical stroke in humans, the blind and randomized design principle was not closely followed, the inclusion and exclusion criteria was not previously established, sample size was inadequate, endpoint was not scientific nor blindly assessed, inadequate reporting of data and statistical flaws. To bridge the gap between experimental and clinical research, international consortia have attempted to establish standardized guidelines for study design and data report, which include optimizing animal models as well as experimental design, using innovative approaches to assess endpoint, making raw data and negative results available, establishing prior registration mechanism, conducting multicenter preclinical randomized controlled trials (pRCTs), systematic reviews and meta-analysis of preclinical studies, evolving the original focus on neuroprotection into a broader consideration of the role of neurovascular unit and ischemic cascade.